The Girl that never was
by FreeWrite
Summary: She was a normal girl, she was a potential, she was many things, and she was a Girl that never was. She is Catherine Willows and a past she didn’t want has found her.


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Title: The Girl that never was.

Author: FreeWrite )

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any characters affiliated. Nor do I own CSI or any of the characters affiliated. They both belong to people who are not me. I am merely borrowing for a small amount of time and promise not to make any money from them in the meanwhile.

Summary: She was a normal girl, she was a potential, she was many things, and she was a Girl that never was. She is Catherine Willows and a past she didn't want has found her.

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Authors Notes: Did you ever get an idea that won't leave you alone? Well here is one of mine. I got to thinking about the potential's who had the Watcher, did the training and then were told one day that they were never going to be a Slayer. This is what I came up with.

Yes I am working on a sequel to Landed but I had to get this out of my system first.

Finally, after three attempts this is being posted. Thankyou Alex for your beta-ing I don't know what I'd do without you.

Time Lines: BtVS three years give or take post Chosen. CSI take your pick it doesn't matter there are no spoilers.

Questions? Comments? If so you know what to do

"Tell me" Catherine Willow's eyed the girl sitting in front of her. The bright fluorescent lights of the interrogation room glaring, down on them as the two women attempted to intimidate each other without being too obvious about it

"What were you doing in the warehouse that day?"

Buffy Summers smiled and returned the gaze directed at her evenly

"I had a meeting there. We took care of business, then Faith and I left. We spent the rest of the day shopping and seeing the sights of Vegas. Neither of us have ever been here before."

Catherine nodded slowly trying to gather her thoughts. The evidence was stacked up against the two girls; they had found fingerprints and hair from both Buffy Summers and Faith Wilkins at the scene. Both of the girls had admitted to being there on the day the crime had been discovered, but they were both adamant that when they had left there were no bodies or blood anywhere that they had seen.

They were both lying.

__

The warehouse was dark and dusty as Catherine slowly made her way though the maze of boxes to where the slaughter had occurred.

From what she had been told by the attending officer mere minutes before none of the bodies had been removed yet. She hadn't questioned why; there was no point he wouldn't know and she would find out when she got inside.

The light of her torch swept from side to side as she kept keenly trained eyes on her surroundings just in case she could pick up anything on her way through.

Just because a crime had been committed in one place it didn't mean that there wasn't evidence elsewhere.

As she approached the crime scene Catherine could see the lights of other torches as others in her unit worked over the crime scene. Looking for anything that would tell them who had committed the crime, what had been used, when it had happened, where each step of it had occurred, and finally why it had happened.

In all her years working with the Crime Scene Investigations Unit nothing had prepared her for the sight that she was greeted with.

"Why meet in a warehouse?" Catherine leaned back in her chair determined to get the younger woman to crack. Unfortunately she didn't realise that it took a lot for Buffy Summers to crack.

"Just following orders. My employers organised the meeting, they organised everything all I had to do was show up"

"And who are your employer's again?"

Buffy was getting tired of the questioning, she knew that she should probably call Giles, but something told her that they needed to handle this one themselves, that getting Giles involved would be a bad thing. She didn't know why, call it gut instinct.

She just hoped that Faith didn't call him either.

Crossing her arms over her chest Buffy let a light smile cross over her face.

"The International Foundation for Gifted Girls"

Catherine raised an eyebrow and turned her head slightly to look through the two-way mirror on her left hoping that someone would get the hint and go look up the company without being told to.

Opening the folder that was sitting in front of her Catherine pulled out a photo and pushed it over to sit in front of the younger woman.

"Your saying you don't know anything about this?"

__

Swallowing the bile that rose up from her stomach and tried to get out of her mouth, Catherine closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping that when she opened them again the sight that had initially greeted her would be gone.

Cracking her blue eyes open her hopes fell and there in front of her was a scene that no one should be confronted with.

In the centre of the room was a large round table, dark liquid covering it. Still dripping off the edges in some places, but it wasn't the table itself that disturbed her.

Approximately eight feet above the table were six sets of shackles hanging from the ceiling; four of them were still occupied. Catherine could tell immediately without needing to take a closer look that none of them were alive.

The amount of blood adorning the table and floor told her that.

A light hand on her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts and she turned to see Jim Brass standing behind her looking as though he would like to be any place as long as it wasn't there.

At first neither of them said anything but simply nodded in acknowledgment of each other's presence.

In all her years as a CSI Catherine had never seen anything like this, and she hoped she never would again.

"Four girls, looks like they're all in their mid to late twenties, hung upside down then their wrists were slit"

Brass took a deep breath

"They bled to death"

Tightening the grip she had on her kit Catherine didn't say anything there was nothing she could say.

They had been sitting in silence for the last few minutes, Catherine hoping that the combination of silence and the crime scene photo would spur the girl in to talking. Buffy trying not to let the effect the photo had on her show, at the same time hoping that they would realise she knew' nothing and let her go.

A tapping on the door caused them both to look towards it as Gil Grissom stuck his head through the door.

"Catherine do you have a moment"

Not answering verbally the strawberry blond stood up and followed the nightshift supervisor out the door. Closing it behind her Catherine looked at Grissom expectantly waiting for whatever it was he deemed important enough to interrupt.

"I looked up their so called employers" he started "It's a legitimate foundation based in London England but they have offices all over the world. Up until just over two years ago they were known simply as The Council."

Catherine's eyes widened as the name tweaked the memory of a part of her life that she didn't like to think about, a person she didn't like to remember and a cause she never wanted to be part of.

His gaze was focused on the file in front of him so he didn't notice blood slowly draining from her face.

"No one knows what they did or really what they do now, but they have a lot of pull, not just in London but here as well"

Finally gaining the ability to speak again Catherine snatched the file out of his hands "Who's in charge?"

"Rupert Giles"

__

Setting her kit on the ground towards the edge of the area that the others were working in Catherine stepped as close to the table as possible making sure not to step into the blood while she was at it.

Moving the beam of the torch towards the wrists of each of the victims she squinted in the dim light and noticed that none of them were bleeding anymore.

Looking over to Warwick who was on the other side of the table looking for something on the ground, she caught the man's eyes

"What do you think 15 litres of blood here?"

"At least" Warwick swallowed visibly as he took in the sight of the bodies hanging in front of him "they're all dry" He shook his head.

No sleep for a while.

This time Catherine's gasp of shock did catch Gil's attention. He watched her closely as she skimmed through the file she had snatched out of his hands moments before. Catherine thought back to what she had read about Buffy Summers and Faith Wilkins. Both of the girls had juvenile records, they hadn't been able to find out what was in them as of yet, but Catherine knew what they would contain.

If one of the girls was who Catherine thought she was...

She turned abruptly on her heel seemingly forgetting that Grissom was there and started to walk back towards the interrogation room when his hand grasping her upper arm and stopped her short.

Startled out of her jumbled thoughts Catherine stared at him waiting for an explanation, not knowing that he was waiting for the same thing.

"What is it?"

She stared back at him not flinching from his inquisitive gaze, knowing that she had to tell him something just not her full suspicions.

"I'm not sure yet" she paused momentarily trying to think of something to put him off for the moment "I need to talk to her again before I know for sure"

Pulling her arm out of his grip Catherine opened the door and slipped back inside to a waiting Buffy.

__

Catherine didn't think she'd ever been so relieved as when they finally took the bodies of those girls away. It was distracting to say the least. As the last of the coroners team walked out of the room a glint on the far side of the room caught her attention. Careful not to walk through any of the evidence but at the same time not wanting to loose sight of whatever it was. Reaching the spot she shone her torch around. There on the ground half concealed by dirt was a silver cross. Picking it up she studied the intricate designs covering the front. At first glance they looked to be celtic but she wasn't sure. Turning it over there was a small inscription on the back.

"Baked yet? A"

Reaching into her pocket Catherine pulled out an evidence bag and dropped it inside. All around her the entire team continued to work but for the first time in a long while they were fairly silent as they worked.

It almost didn't seem right to be talking here.

It had become the kind of place that demanded silence.

Sitting back in the seat opposite Buffy Catherine placed the file directly in front of her, leaving it closed she didn't need to look in it to know what questions she was going to ask.

"Your boss, Rupert Giles"

Buffy raised a single eyebrow. That wasn't what she was expecting to hear.

"What was his fathers name?"

The other eyebrow joined the first high on her forehead.

"Edward Giles" What type of information was this woman fishing for?

"Rupert go into the family business?"

Buffy was still confused as to why she was being asked about Giles and his Dad but that final question about the family business threw her for an even larger loop. This woman knew something. She hadn't even mentioned Giles let alone his Dad, unless it had been Faith but she thought that Faith had more sense than that. She decided to keep her answers short and succinct.

"Yes"

Catherine knew what her next question needed to be, but she didn't want to ask it, didn't want to know. She had left that part of her life behind a very long time ago and wanted no part of that world anymore, but somewhere deep inside of her there was a voice crying out for an answer. A part of her wanted to know what it was like. How this girl had survived. What had she had to do? What her life was like. She didn't ask any of them.

Catherine only asked one.

"Are you the One girl?"

__

"Ok" Greg spun around in his chair to look at Catherine, the DNA and blood test results in his hand.

"This was a tough one, none of the victims were related, and I managed to separate ten different strands of DNA. Five female four males, nine of them were types AB negative and the tenth was O positive. There were traces of different virus' in there but no way for me to tell who had what. It was hard enough separating the strands let alone trying to find out what was in who."

Catherine nodded; there was something about this case. Deep in the pit of her stomach she knew that something was going to happen.

But she didn't know what.

Catherine could see no visible reaction on the face of Buffy Summers but didn't drop eye contact. This was too important; Catherine didn't care if she had to sit there all night she would get the answer she was looking for.

"Weeeeeell" Buffy leaned forward resting her elbows on the table in front of her and dropped her voice down low enough for only Catherine to hear.

"I honestly don't think that there are anymore Buffy Summers in the world so yes I would have to admit that I am the one Girl."

The older woman knew that Buffy was playing with her. Trying to buy time for some reason, even though neither of the two girls had been arrested it was still quite the situation they had gotten themselves into, and from the looks of it, it would be a tough one to get out of. Catherine knew this, Buffy knew this and most likely Faith and all the others involved in the investigation knew this.

The question then became who would break first.

__

Catherine sat straight up in bed, cold sweat trickling down her face as the images of monsters flashed through her mind once again. Although she had never come up against them face to face the pictures, descriptions and her imagination filled in the blanks.

She used to have dreams like that all the time, especially when Edward Giles had first informed her of the supernatural and who she potentially was. They had stopped years before, in fact they had stopped the very night not long before her eighteenth birthday she had been informed that she was no longer a Slayer in Waiting'. She was free, her life was her own once again, and the destiny that might have been no longer was.

For 6 years he had told her "Be prepared Catherine, you never know when your time may come"

So she had prepared herself, she had done everything she was told to, even left her family when she was sixteen for her so called destiny' but then one day in the blink of an eye it was all taken away.

She was free. She didn't know what to do. Who she could be or what she could do. She had stopped thinking of the future a long time before. Suddenly her whole life was laid before her once again. She'd tried to go home but there wasn't a home left for her anymore.

And she didn't know how to live the life she had.

"Into every generation a"

Before Catherine could get any further Buffy cut her off.

"Yes I'm her and if you know that then would I be right in guessing that you're a girl that never was?"

Catherine nodded

"And Edward Giles was your"Buffy paused momentarily trying to find the right word that wasn't Watcher.

"Mentor" Catherine helpfully supplied "Yes he was"

"Buffy tell me what happened"

"I can't tell you everything you know that."

"I do" Catherine acquiesced "so tell me as much as you can."

Buffy nodded and quickly thought through the last few days and what would be safe to say here and what wouldn't.

"Cult sacrifice. We got wind of it; Faith and I came to take care of it but didn't get there in time. We didn't know it wasn't time sensitive. Those girls were dead before we got there. They needed two more, tried to use Faith as one but she's the wrong blood type. We couldn't save them but"

"You stopped them from finishing what they started" Catherine once again finished for the younger woman.

"Yeah"

It suddenly occurred to Catherine that if Buffy was the Slayer then how did Faith fit in? She considered asking but knew that she would only hit another brick wall. Catherine considered herself lucky to get as much out of Buffy as she did.

Silence reigned in the room for another few moments before Catherine stood up once again.

"I'll be back in a minute"

Gil Grissom had been watching since Catherine walked back into the interrogation room and was a little befuddled. For some reason after going back in there Catherine had managed to get the information she was looking for out of the girl. However it didn't seem to be the type of information that the rest of the team was looking for.

Nothing in their investigation had indicated that they were looking at a cult sacrifice. There were none of the usual indicators that a cult was involved with this at all.

__

Catherine stood over the pictures of the crime scene just staring at them not entirely sure what she was looking for. They had multiple strands of hair and many different DNA samples and a few fingerprints, it had been troublesome trying to match everything to the victims they had. They could pinpoint at least eight other people being at the same scene within the previous 48 hours. Unfortunately the computer hadn't given them any matches at this point and Catherine was hoping that if she stood there and stared at the crime scene photo's long enough something would come to her.

The sound of the door opening forced Catherine to look up from her work, Nick was standing there waiting for her to acknowledge him. Seeing her eyebrows rise questioningly he took that as his queue to speak.

"We got a hit on two of the fingerprints" He walked further into the room as he kept speaking "First belong to Faith Wilkins. Spent time in a LA Juvenile facility. No idea what for, we couldn't get the records. Second we think belong to Buffy Summers, she was a suspect in a murder about 6 years ago. They took prints off the scene that they thought were hers but never had enough evidence to print her. They've both been out of the country for the last two years so both of the girls were printed when they flew into La Guardia a week ago." Nick grinned over at the older woman.

"And finally they booked into Caesars Palace three days ago and they're still there."

Catherine stepped out of the interrogation room for the second time that night and was just about to ask Gil if he knew of any cults that had a similar MO to what they had been investigating. While she believed Buffy she knew that they would need evidence to back her claims in order to rule the two girls out as suspects.

It was a surprise when she saw that the Sheriff was already standing there with Grissom. And neither of them looked happy. In fact Grissom looked down right furious.

With no preamble or pleasantries the Sheriff came right out and said whatever it was that had gotten him in such a tizzy.

"I don't care what evidence you do and don't have."

Gil had been about to interrupt but he continued. "This is not my choice, nor are the orders from me. Release the two girls you picked up earlier tonight. That is not a request."

Thrusting an envelope into Gil's hands the man turned on his heel and started to walk away, but stopped and turned back around.

"I'm getting pressure from the Governor, the Governor of California, and rumour has it that the President and someone very high up in the British Government have been in talks all day about these two girls. They have very powerful friends and from what I've been told they could have been out of here and the Country hours ago."

Catherine believed him, but she could see that Gil didn't.

Catherine watched as Grissom opened the envelope, and looked through the contents. His face paled. Grabbing the papers out of his hand Catherine looked at them her eyes wide. The first series of sheets contained ME reports and the approximate time of death for each victim. Underneath was a set of security photo's from one of Caesars Palace gambling rooms. Both girls were clearly seen in the photos, time stamped at the same time indicated by the ME that the victims were killed. They had already checked the security from Caesars Palace. There had been nothing.

The final piece of paper was a simple white sheet. It could have come out of any printer in just about any country. Typed on the top was a simple sentence.

The following countries have offered diplomatic immunity should the need arise for Buffy Summers and Faith Wilkins."

Catherine did a quick count. There were 93 countries listed. Including the United States of America.

--- ----

Faith was bored, she had been in this same room for hours, and they had been asking her the same questions for hours for and she had been giving them the same answers for hours.

It had gotten old after about 10 minutes.

So she had spent the last few hours bored out of her head wondering if Buffy was getting the same shit.

There was a knock at the door, the man who had been keeping her company stood and walked out, while he was hot and definitely screwable she didn't think that he would be into it. Now was the opportune time for her to escape but she had promised Giles that she wouldn't do anymore property damage than necessary.

Smashing up a Las Vegas police Station wasn't considered necessary damage.

Yet

However if they asked her anymore pointless questions then she really would consider it necessary. The first round had been fine but she thought they would have got the point by now.

She was surprised when a few moments later he was back and uttered the four words she wasn't expecting.

"You're free to go."

Outside the police station Buffy and Faith stood waiting for their ride back to the hotel. They hadn't spoken to each other yet, but Faith had a feeling that there was a whole lotta story waiting for her when they got back to the hotel room.

Getting out of the patrol car Buffy pulled the swipe card out of her pocket and opened the door, holding it she gestured to Faith to walk inside and closed the behind them.

"Grab your stuff. We're meeting someone and then we fly out to New York tonight."

Turning to face the older Slayer Faith placed her hands on her hips and watched as Buffy started to push things in to her bags.

"B, I'm not Giles, I'm not Dawn or the Gang. Tell me or I don't go anywhere."

"Sorry." Buffy turned to face her blushing slightly. "I think I've found us a contact here in Vegas. She might even be able to mentor a girl here if she has to. I don't know for sure yet. That's why we're going to see her."

Faith nodded in understanding. "Who is she?"

"She could have been one of us."

-- ---

Catherine Willows sat outside in the barely rising sun, her mind still reeling from the information overload she had received over the course of the night.

Now no more than half an hour after they had been released, Catherine had another hour to get home before Buffy would be there. She considered skipping it, in some ways she didn't want to know about the life she had missed out on. Now over 20 years on she was grateful that she was s girl who never was.

Standing up she walked over to the door of her car and got in. She had to know; she would regret it if she didn't at least talk to them some more. However she had some things before then.

Pulling into the driveway of her house in the outskirts of Vegas, Catherine took a deep breath and steeled herself for the inevitable.

"Who're they Mommy?"

Catherine turned and smiled at her daughter. "They're friends of Mommy's. She has to talk to them while you get ready for school."

Both Buffy and Faith were sitting on the front steps waiting. Out in the sun they looked like regular twenty something's. Buffy's clothes were in the height of fashion, the kind that any woman her age with any dress sense would wear. However Faith was still wearing black and leather. It suited her.

"You two got lucky."

Faith stood and dropped the cigarette that had been dangling in her fingers. "Three things I don't believe in: luck, coincidences, and Leprechauns."

Catherine let out a small chuckle. "You knew all along that we wouldn't be able to hold you." It was a statement not a question. They didn't even reply; they didn't need to.

"Tell me what it's like?" She wanted no needed to know. They seemed so normal, not what she expected and certainly not what Edward had drilled into her as to what a proper Slayer should be like.

So they did.

Catherine stood at the gates to the Elementary school Lindsay attended and watched her daughter run through the playground, meeting up with friends, stopping to talk to teachers, generally being the social butterfly that Catherine knew she was. It scared her, what she had learned in the last twelve hours. Even then she knew that Buffy and Faith had watered it down considerably. While she didn't know what poor girl had been called instead of her, she did know she would be eternally grateful she had been given a chance to live her life destiny and calling free.

If she had been chosen, she knew that she would be dead. No question about it, no Slayer had survived to see their 30th birthday let alone 40th. She wouldn't have a job she loved, the friends and family that made her life what it was. And Lindsey, her daughter, the one thing in her life that made up for anything and everything else, would never have been born. That in itself made it worth it.

Yes Catherine was quite content to be a Girl who never was.


End file.
